I find preview trailers to be a great form of advertising in the video game world. Not only do they hype you up for the title but they also shed light on the story, characters, and world that is contained in the game. Lately, I've been noticing that these trailers have been falsely representing the games they are advertising. Take the Star Wars: The Old Republic premiere trailer that was shown at E3 2010. It was gorgeous and exciting, yet everything that was shown in the trailer was not contained in the actual game. The high level of CGI, the fluid movement, even the exciting battles do not look remotely like what it does in the game. There's also the Dragon Age: Origins trailers that I saw not only on the internet but in TV commercials too. I eventually picked up the game and was quite shocked to see that it was a Diablo-esque type game. From the top down camera to the 90s graphics - I felt that I had been led on by the CGI trailers that had misrepresented the game.Really, is this how games should be portrayed and advertised, with great CGI trailers that don't match the graphical quality of the actual game? Would you be bothered if a movie trailer showed Brad Pitt and then the actual star of the movie was the guy from Harry Potter? At least the trailers for games like Killzone 2 and Final Fantasy XIII were close, in both graphics and gameplay, to presenting what the games were really about. Though I still watch trailers and will be looking forward to some world premieres at the VGAs, I can't help but feel that what I will be seeing will be a far cry from the games I will actually be playing.
